


paris is falling and screaming and dying and living.

by edeabeth



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Metaphors, Paris - Freeform, Rape, Rape Recovery, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:33:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edeabeth/pseuds/edeabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes he thinks he can see Paris clutched within her hands, and fragments of Germany caught within her gaze. It was a broken stare. One filled with the shattered pieces of countries and identities, with the falling of Rome chained to her spine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	paris is falling and screaming and dying and living.

**Author's Note:**

> Studying French, and been looking at Paris and the history and couldn't help but play around with this idea at 2 AM in the morning.

 

The way she would speak reminded him of the snow falling in France. He remembered it, the way it tumbled and fell into the slush and mud and dead bodies that were just thrown about.

Sometimes he thinks he can see Paris clutched within her hands, and fragments of Germany caught within her gaze. It was a broken stare. One filled with the shattered pieces of countries and identities, with the falling of Rome chained to her spine.

He doesn’t really see past the glass smiles and the feathered words until he finds her one night. It’s late, and all he can feel in shadows shaking against the moonlight streamed in through windows. He doesn’t sleep much, not really anymore. His feet know his pathways, wandering through the dismal hallways and just content with listening to the sounds of the living. He can feel the heavy breathing of Thor from three doors down. The slight movements of the archer in his sleep. Light filtering through the crack of Banner’s door, the strange pulsing of music ten floors down from the labs.

She isn’t here. She should be here, should have been back five days past. Tony had hacked files; Clint had gone out personally to S.H.I.E.L.D and demanded answers which hadn’t existed. A mission was meant to only last a week at most.

It’s there he meets her, for a second seeing a ghost with the red hair and dark eyes. It’s wrong though. No soft smirk lingering, kind hands reaching out to him.

He does see past the girl he knew, and into the woman wrapped in the telltale signs of insomnia. Her face is pale and drawn with a black eye stubborn against the porcelain skin. She limps, one hand flat against her rib cage.

“Captain,” she registers his appearance thickly, as if wandering about half asleep, looking at him with eyes that look like gunpowder and the burning bodies cast into death. “Just got back.”

He comes to a stop, forcing himself not to grab onto the thin wrist and forcing her to stay. “You’re late. What happened?” She looks so tired and drawn, and nearly stumbles into him before crying out and snapping away.

“Get away from me!” Her eyes meet his instantly, and she has her hands raised ready to fight him. “Do not touch me, do not touch me.”

He watched her carefully, raising his hands gently and slowly. The cut on her cheek is glaring at him, dried blood and such delicate intent. It’s razor straight, and part of his knows it will scar.

_(French snow is falling, like ink against the blood. Paris is dying, and burning and rebuilding before crumbling apart all over again. Snow keeps falling.)_

“When did you sleep last?” He asks, before cringing at the stupid question. It had been almost a month of living in the same area before Clint informed him that she rarely slept; perhaps keeping equal score with Tony if not more. On missions she kept herself from sleeping, keeping watch all night with her back to the wall, eyes on the door. In the tower she sat with a gun in her lap, waiting for the next moment where she had to move, had to grapple for time _because there never was enough time._

“Get away from me,” she orders, tilting her chin up, attempting to slip around him and towards the coffee. He knows Tony has a pot of coffee sitting still hot, and he knows where she will wander to.

He moves fast, bracing himself in front of her. “You need to sleep.”

“I am fine.”

Words like cannons firing, women screaming and men dying.

He hears them, respects them and denies them. Wrestles her carefully, keeping eye of the way she holds herself and manages to gather her up in his arms and hold her tight despite her weary fight. _(It feels like he’s trying to hold onto something that should have already fallen away.)_

He manages to pull her into his rooms, because her room scares him. It’s so bleak and empty with hard lines and nonexistent nightmares crammed in corners and beneath her bed. Nothing but a change of uniform and a gun tucked beneath her pillow. Maybe at one point, it was a reflection on her. ( _An aged picture with a slight rip in the right corner from constant touch proves that statement wrong. She is caught mid laugh, Clint’s arms tucked around her shoulders securely.  It the distance, the Eiffel Tower rises, a mass skeleton made of iron and dreams.)_

It takes three tries to get her beneath the covers.

One time she takes a knife from her boot in sheer panic and comes close to slitting his throat. Second time she managed to work herself beneath his bed out of his reach and it takes him almost two hours of trying to coax her out before just lifting the bed all together and carefully forcing her out.

She curses and screams and begs, telling them to stop, begging him to leave her.

He practically wraps her up in blankets to keep her tangled up and unable to flee so easily. He runs his fingers through her hair, trying to calm her despite her continuous struggle.

It’s nearly morning, and she shows no sign of sleep. “Steve?”

“Yeah?” His voice is like gravel.

“They hurt me.” She laughed bitterly, her heads against his thigh. “Fucked me up.”

He sighed. “I know.” She looks small, sheets almost purposely knotted around her legs. “What happened?”

“I was recognized almost instantly. They took me in, tied me up and took advantage. Raped me again and again. I managed to pull myself out about a day ago. Mission was a bust.”

Paris is falling beneath her words.

He wonders what Peggy what look like, wearing a dress like sacrifice and blood waiting, cigarette smoke and fireworks as a backdrop. What she would look like after what Natasha faced; cold men and rape. If she could keep being strong, carrying the weight of guilt and death upon her shoulders.

She spoke, words tangled in the memories of plastic ties and the feeling exposed coldness. Steve listens, his jaw clenched. A few times she startles, and he has to pulls her back down firmly, and speaks words that just blend together. “You are going to be alright. You are safe, you are free. You are alright.”

Paris is dying.

Soon, she tumbles off asleep, warm within the protective shield of Steve.

Suddenly, he remembers Paris. Sleep on his back beneath rain fall and snow fall. The taste of bottled wine and smoke. Feeling a broken old man press against him in a crowd for a second, and the look of a young woman with eyes like shattered windows. He can feel the machine gun clenched in his hands, feeling it take off as it spews forth death.

Paris is screaming.

He holds on like he is a soldier again, staked out with guns ready and waiting. He runs his fingers through her dark red hair, and thinks of the bloody smiles and the fierce sunrises. She stirs every once and a while, turning away or just settling back down, like a city rising and falling like the sweep of the oceans.

He will watch and wait, seeing her rebuild the fractures and damages done to her frame. She will become unstoppable, warped and wrapped beneath the dust of age and fallen cities.

Paris is living.  


End file.
